Westminster mayoral race highlights broader debate on extremism

Although November’s elections are over, their meaning is still being argued, especially when it comes to how much tolerance Colorado voters have for candidates linked to far-right extremism.

In some races, incumbents survived and political control barely shifted. In others, voters drew sharper lines. Taken together, the results suggest an electorate negotiating where, exactly, its boundaries lie, particularly when candidates are accused of ties to extremist movements.

That tension was on display in Westminster’s mayoral race.

When Westminster residents went to the polls on Nov. 5, they faced three distinct choices for mayor. Council member Claire Carmelia emerged with a comfortable victory over her two challengers. One of them, David DeMott, spent part of his campaign responding to renewed allegations that he had ties to the far-right extremist group known as the Three Percenters.

David DeMott

The allegations were not new. In 2021, an old photograph surfaced online showing DeMott wearing a hat bearing the Three Percenters’ logo. DeMott has consistently denied being a member of the group, saying the image was mischaracterized and that he does not support extremist ideology.

The Anti-Defamation League describes the Three Percenters as a militia movement that directs its hostility toward “perceived foes, including leftists/antifa, Muslims, and immigrants.” Members broadly share a deep mistrust of government and promote what they describe as a “restoration of the Founders’ Republic.” Unlike more centralized extremist organizations, however, the Three Percenters operate through loosely connected chapters and sympathizers, an ambiguity that often allows political figures to distance themselves from formal membership while still facing scrutiny over association.

Asked about the outcome of the race, DeMott said his loss reflected more than just the controversy. “While there were misleading attacks and a broader national shift that affected many candidates seen as more conservative, I trust the outcome happened as it was meant to,” he said.

Still, the question raised by Westminster voters lingers beyond the city’s borders: was DeMott’s defeat a rejection of candidates linked, directly or indirectly, to extremist movements, or merely the result of local dynamics and a strong opponent?

DeMott is not the first Colorado politician to face questions about extreme views or associations. The state’s most prominent example is U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

Elected in 2020 to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Boebert quickly became one of the most outspoken figures on the far right. She has faced repeated scrutiny for her rhetoric and her past expressions of support for individuals connected to the Three Percenters. In 2023, amid growing backlash in her district, Boebert announced she would seek reelection in the more conservative 4th District. She ultimately won that race.

Her decision to change districts raised a different but related question: did Boebert sense that even conservative voters were growing less willing to tolerate candidates perceived as extreme? And if so, does her success in the 4th District suggest those limits are regional, rather than statewide?

The Three Percenters are only one of several far-right movements that have intersected with Colorado politics in recent years. In 2022, the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights reported that 14 Colorado state legislators had ties to far-right Facebook groups. At the local level, where races receive less scrutiny, the number of officials with similar connections may be even higher.

Those connections have occasionally drawn national attention. On Dec. 3, President Donald Trump used his Truth Social account to criticize Colorado Gov. Jared Polis for not intervening in the imprisonment of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. Peters was convicted in 2024 on charges of election interference stemming from her efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election, which she falsely claimed was stolen. In November 2021, Peters appeared in a video alongside Cory Anderson, a known supporter of the Three Percenters.

Journalist Shane Bauer has traced the ideological roots of the Three Percenters to earlier far-right movements galvanized by the election of President Barack Obama. Writing for Mother Jones, Bauer described how splinter groups formed from older organizations, adapting their strategies and increasingly turning toward electoral politics as a means of influence. In Colorado, this included the emergence of groups like the Three Percent United Patriots, or 3UP.

A protester wears a Three Percenter flag on the East Plaza of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the storming of the Capitol. Photo by Elvert Barnes, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The strategy, Bauer argued, was simple: if the system could not be overthrown, it could be entered.

Dr. Derek R. Everett, a historian at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said these dynamics are not new to Colorado.

“This brings to mind the 2013 secession movement based in Weld County,” Everett said. “It was motivated by a sentiment that has percolated in Colorado since World War II, essentially the idea that Colorado just doesn’t feel like Colorado anymore.”

That feeling, Everett said, sits at the core of many extremist movements, both in the state and nationally. “You could find that sentiment at the heart of almost any ‘extreme’ group that’s arisen over the past century,” he said, often paired with the belief that the country must be made ‘great’ again, however individuals choose to define that past.

What remains unclear is whether far-right groups are seeing meaningful returns from their engagement with electoral politics. Are these movements successfully normalizing their ideas through candidates and campaigns? Or are recent election results signaling a limit, an electorate willing to tolerate conservative politics, but not associations with extremism?

For now, Colorado’s elections offer no single answer. Instead, they reveal a patchwork of outcomes, shaped by geography, turnout, and local context. But taken together, those outcomes suggest voters are actively negotiating where ideology ends and extremism begins, and whether the two can still coexist on the ballot.

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